The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes
by MapleleafCameo
Summary: Forced by his interfering git of a brother to the countryside to recuperate, Sherlock stumbles upon a 60 year old mystery. Captain John Watson, returning after WWII mysteriously disappeared on night. Bored Sherlock investigates, but what if Watson didn't disappear? What if he's still there? Sort of a ghost story. Eventual Johnlock
1. Correspondence from an Invalid

**The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes**

**A/N: Oh I am a terrible person! I have two other stories on the go and here I am starting a third:P I will be writing the next chapter of **_**Malediction**_** – I will – I had to work out some issues in my head – no comment - & **_**Once Upon a Lily Pad **_**will be along soon but I couldn't get rid of this imagine of of Sherlock sitting at a desk in an old country house. I needed to quiet the story in my head:P**

**Anyway here it s – sort of kind of a ghost story but not really – not actually sure what it is;) but we shall see**

**Thanks again to the lovey and talented johnsarmylady and mattsloved1, (who won't speak to me again if I don't get Chapter 9 of **_**Mal**_** up soon:P) for reading this over.**

**As usual I do not own, but I wish I did:(**

**1. Correspondence from an Invalid in the Country**

_Dear Mrs. Hudson,_

_I am writing to you as promised. I cannot believe that I have allowed myself to pick up a pen and compose a letter. Tedious. I am sure you are equally surprised. I had no intention of holding myself to the sentimentality of keeping you 'up to speed', as you so ineloquently put it, of my health, physical and mental. As well, I will not impart to you the prices at the shops nor inform you the flowers look lovely for the season. I am not, as you are well aware, the sort to chat about the weather and the local gossip. I would not listen to it nor would I convey it unless of course it leads to an interesting murder or even perhaps a jewel theft. No such luck. I would text you and say I am fine and I have arrived in this hellhole and I am safe, safe but utterly, utterly bored, but the house has not yet been connected to any sort of Internet and the mobile signal is dreadful. Therefore I am reduced to an old fashioned and outdated mode of communication._

_I can tell you that I will definitely be thinking of new and inventive ways to kill Mycroft. Don't be alarmed. I probably won't. Mother would not be impressed. I still blame him for kidnapping me and sending me here to recuperate. I was shot for God's sake not invalided. And it is not my fault that I picked up a hospital-induced illness as a result. But kidnap me he did, as you are aware, claiming the air would be good for my lungs. He has also forbidden me to smoke, not that I can between his bribing all of the local shops into refusing to sell cigarettes to me and that I double over in agony as soon as I inhale. Scratch that. I do not. You are not to imagine me gasping on the floor nor are you to inform my brother._

_I am reluctant to admit I have been sleeping better since I arrived. I had wondered if I would miss the noise and the traffic and the excitement of London. I do, but there is something rather tranquil about this place. Do not speak of this to Mycroft. He would be unbearably smug._

_You would be interested in the house itself. It's quite old, typical English garden, pokey rooms and creaky staircase. The view from the room I am in presently looks out onto the back garden. There are bees, far more than I have ever seen and the caretaker, who thankfully minds the garden so I don't have to, informs me the neighbour to the West keeps hives. I am thinking of wandering over and poking around. Yes, I know you are worried I will get into trouble, but I promise I will ask permission. Maybe._

_The house itself belongs to a Miss Harriet Watson, an elderly, but sharp woman who lives in the small town with her Lesbian life partner. Dreadful term. As you have both reached a similar age, you would enjoy listening to her ramble on about the goings on in the local area. I, however, do not. She did have some mildly interesting stories to tell about the house. It belonged to her great uncle, a Captain John Watson. Here is the one mystery that may be worth my time. The one little bit of unsolved drama in the whole county. Captain Watson returned to his home after serving during WWII to establish a medical practice. One night, under supposedly suspicious circumstances, he mysteriously disappeared. No one saw anything and no one heard anything. Just gone. If I find I am bored beyond redemption I may peruse it and unearth all the sordid details. See what I am reduced to? Should be easy. Come to think of it may not be worth my attention whatsoever._

_I have surprised myself by the length of this letter. I must be bored. I believe I will write to Lestrade next. I am sure London is falling apart and the crime rate has blossomed since I departed. He will be requiring my assistance. I will mention that I am available to consult once I get a landline installed. I was told it would be at least 3 weeks._

_Such a dull place. Nothing happens here._

_S. Holmes _

Sherlock stretched and shook his cramped hand. It had been a long time since he had sat to write a letter by hand. He wasn't sure why he had felt the need. Deep inside the recesses of his mind he knew on some level he did indeed miss Mrs. Hudson, something he wouldn't have thought possible.

Carefully folding the letter, he stuck it into an envelope he found in the old writing desk, and addressed it in his spidery handwriting. He would take a walk into town later and mail it. It wasn't far and he needed to stretch his legs. Being confined in the hospital for weeks and then coming down with pneumonia afterwards had drained him of his former vitality. His transport had failed him and he was no longer able to run and jump and climb throughout the streets of London.

He tapped the pen against the desk and stared out into the back garden, which blended into the roll and swell of the hills. Grass and wildflowers dotted the distance. Supposedly there was a herd of wild horses that roamed the area. It was all beautiful and peaceful and calm.

He might just go mad and start shooting the wall if nothing new happened soon.


	2. Tales Told by the Fire

2. Tales Told by the Fire

_Dear Mrs. Hudson,_

_It has only been a few days since my last letter, but I am again endeavouring to keep myself from going mad by writing to you. I am assuming the Royal Mail delivered my last letter, although that is perhaps presumptuous. _

_As I have no one of consequence to discuss this with and as you have little to do in your day-to-day life, I thought you might be interested in the information I have discovered regarding the disappearance of Captain Watson. I am also trying to include news of the sort that would amuse you such as the weather and local gossip. I stated in my last letter I would do neither but as it is exceedingly dull here and little happens to amuse you on Baker Street without me to provide the thrill of my investigations, I have decided to do so, as a favour to you. _

_I have visited Miss Harriet Watson and had what some would say was a lovely chat and I would say was an incoherent rambling of a woman nearing infirmity. Did I tell you she is close your age? Yes, I am positive I did so in my last letter._

_We were in her sitting room in front of a rather large fire. It was a warm day for October, the weather having been clear the better part of the week, but I suppose being near to ninety makes it hard to retain one's body heat. I wouldn't know, but I imagine you would have some insight into this. As I was saying, the lady in question had lit a rather large fire and the room was stifling. As Miss Watson droned on and on, I found myself contemplating other more important ideas and I must admit I was rather close to considering creating a diversion in order to leave the premises. Fortunately, she began to speak rather in earnest about her great uncle, and consequently got to the point._

_She spoke of the night he disappeared. She said he was coming home from the local pub, having stopped a fight amongst the patrons, the nature of which has been lost to time. That is disappointing as the fight may be the very reason Watson disappeared. Harriet Watson stated that Watson was a proud man with a quick temper and a mean right hook. He may have originally tried to stop the fight, but the story continues that he gave as good as he got and the pub was a bit of a wreck afterwards. He is said to have left the pub shortly before midnight and was not seen again._

_Miss Watson said that after a few days, having not shown up at his office, some went looking for him at the house, but there was nothing. No signs of a struggle, no signs of Watson. I really need to look at the police records of the time, see if they were smart enough to take photos of the house. As I have little faith in the indigenous police force, I have faint hope. Some believe he was perhaps concussed during the fight, lost his way in the dark and drowned in a nearby pond. Before you can ask, it was apparently dredged but a body didn't turn up and never has. _

_Simple-minded people being what they are, outlandish stories have come forth ever since. The nearest neighbours reported a strange glow emanating from the region of the house the night of the disappearance. They were apparently near enough to just make out the lights from the house at night. Back then there had been a copse of trees between the house and the neighbours, but a high wind moved the branches around and the lights would appear. On that night a high wind was reported in the general area of the house but not in town, which has lead to all sorts of overactive imaginative speculation. Shame that the former neighbours are all deceased, as are nearly all who lived at this time, I might have gained further insight. Again I shall have to rely on shoddy record keeping._

_Many of the townsfolk believe fairies or the Sidhe carried him off. That is the problem with legend, myth and dealing with the uneducated and simple minded; they come up with stories they want to believe in rather than simple facts – rather like you telling your friend's grandson about Father Christmas. If only people would stick to the truth and not all this fairy nonsense and stories. _

_Since then the house has been looked upon with the usual outlandish rumour as being haunted. Miss Watson stated that those who stay here are often subjected to noises in the night, furniture displacement, the usual. Occasionally some have seen a sad and lonely figure standing on the landing or glimpses of the man looking over their shoulder in the mirror of the bathroom. One said he could smell toast in the mornings. I suggested that individual might wish to check for signs of stroke. Miss Watson asked if I had noticed anything. I of course stated I notice everything and nothing unusual had occurred but she gave me a certain look, which I found to be rather insulting._

Sherlock put down his pen and shifted his head, ears perked, as a small noise from beyond the door, registered. A creak, a tread of footsteps. Someone was climbing the stairs. He turned to see who had the audacity to enter the house without knocking. Of course as engrossed as he was with letter writing he may not have noticed someone knocking upon the door and being out in the country and near a small village, sociable people apparently felt the need to let themselves in. He would have to disabuse them of such a notion.

The sound of footsteps stopped outside the door, which hadn't been completely shut when he came in to sit at the desk. The door began to swing open, as if a hand were pushing it from the other side. It vibrated slightly, a swaying motion and creaked a little. Sherlock stood and stepped toward the door to greet whoever was there, a sharp reprimand ready on his lips. The door ceased its forward motion. Sherlock took another step forward.

No one was there.

He placed a hand on the frame and peered out, thinking the intruder had simply stepped out of view. The landing and the hallway were empty. The top of the stairwell was visible from where he stood and a person heading down the stairs would still be in view. He shrugged. An old house creaks and moans as it settles in its agedness. A draft could send a pulse of air up a stairwell and cause a door to move. Any number of things could have caused the motion of the door and the sound of footsteps. He chalked it up to being tired, recuperating and stuffing his head full of sentimental twaddle.

Turning, his hand upon the knob, he began to close the door, firmly. As he did so, there was a faint cobweb brush, a feather light trace of fingertips, pressure, cool and soft, floating, molecule thin, on the back of his hand. Sherlock jerked his hand away, the door bobbed open further and the force was enough to send it bumping against the wall. He glanced at his hand, the hairs on his arm rising in primitive reaction to something. A shiver coursed down his back. The temperature in the room dropped slightly.

After a moment he narrowed his eyes, grasped the door firmly and shut it with a bang. He stood there, hands in his pockets, not quite scrubbing the back of the one against the lining of his trousers. After a further glare at the offending door, he turned and sat back at the desk, but interest in the letter, which lay unfinished upon the desk, left his mind. He sat, elbows upon the desk, palms together, steepled hands.

It was nothing, he knew it was nothing; there was always a logical explanation.

But somehow that didn't explain the soft sigh of sound he had heard at the same time he had felt the pressure of a hand on the back of his.

Try as he might, he couldn't reason away the soft breath on his ear, the caress of a sigh as if someone familiar and intimate whispered his name.


End file.
